Eleven Months, Tanuki
by Aryanne
Summary: It's been so long since then, she couldn't have been expected to remember to breathe. [KK, oneshot]


**Disclaimer - I don't own Rurouni Kenshin or Kermit the Frog.**

**-**

**Eleven Months, Tanuki **

**- **

"Hospital food is the best."

"You're the only person I know who's ever said that," said Kenshin, giving up on his imitation chicken sandwich.

"I'm the only person you know who's sane," Kaoru proclaimed, gesturing around the hospital cafeteria at the mix of doctors, nurses, patients, visitors, and administrators. She finished her last spoonful of dessert – chocolate pudding – and sat her plastic spoon back on her tray.

"I think you've got it backwards."

Kaoru laughed, a sound Kenshin had come to appreciate, and he caught a whiff of her jasmine perfume. He was half in love with her, and he hoped she felt something for him.

Kaoru checked her watch, a modest silver Timex. Kenshin felt a vague sense of disappointment. He had another surgery soon, only two hours long this time, thankfully. He was half in love with Kaoru, but he didn't want to start anything until he figured out how he felt about his wife, Tomoe. And that was why he had Kaoru on his mind even more often than he would have thought possible, because she was the only way he could talk to his wife again.

"Kenshin, did you want to ask me something?" Kaoru asked, startling him. He met her sapphire eyes, wondering at the sometimes disquieting perceptiveness of Kaoru, and in that moment, he knew: she knew. Oh she didn't know the details, but she'd guessed the general drift of things from experience. He wondered how long she'd known.

"I–" he started, knowing the dismay was evident on his face from Kaoru's expression. Hurt flickered through her eyes for a split second, and then she was looking at him differently.

"Would you do it for me?" he asked quietly, half afraid they'd be overheard, which was ridiculous in the crowded hospital cafeteria. No one was paying them the slightest attention, too caught up in their own life-or-death dramas.

Kaoru's eyes hardened and her posture relaxed across the table. Kenshin realized she'd put up a wall between them, but he was only half in love with her, so he could stand it.

"I'll only do it once," she said. Her voice was still the same – light and trilling and filled with emotion, though he knew her well enough to see that she was struggling in vain to keep her voice neutral. She'd warned him.

"Once is enough," he said, beginning to understand that this would cost her. "Please," he said anyway.

Her eyes clouded and she opened her mouth to give him an answer, but –

"Paging Dr. Himura, you're wanted in OR-7. Dr. Himura, you're wanted in OR7."

Her eyes cleared and she offered him a small smile as he jumped to his feet. They both knew that was an operating room reserved for patients from the Emergency Room.

"Good luck, Kenshin," she said, halting his frustrated 'sorry' before it left his mouth. He nodded and bolted for OR-7.

---

---

Kenshin didn't see anything of Kaoru for the next week – the longest they'd ever gone without talking. She avoided him, which wasn't hard, and he let her. He felt half-ashamed of his request, mostly because she'd obviously been expecting it, but he'd mulled it over in his mind too long to waver now. And it wasn't as if he knew anyone else who could help him.

He still loved Tomoe, even though it had been seven years, but he hadn't counted on being half in love with Kaoru. That half love prevented him from seeking Kaoru out now, to get this over with, because the moment he saw her, he'd have to ask again, and that would hurt her.

The others began to notice.

"Did Kaoru tell you Meg and I are crashing at her place for a week?" Sano asked him at a bar one evening. "Man, a week in the boonies."

"The fumigator finally came?" Kenshin replied casually. Sano changed the subject, but Kenshin hadn't missed the fact that Sano seemed a little startled. Normally, Kaoru would have told him something like that.

And then at work Kenshin had run into Megumi, an ER doctor who was also Sano's wife. She'd just wheeled a patient up to OR-8. She'd said, after they'd discussed the patient,

"I haven't seen much of Kaoru lately. Is she spending all that time with you, Sir Ken?"

Megumi was teasing. She always teased. Even the 'Sir Ken' was nothing but a private joke that had, against all odds, stuck.

He'd smiled and said, "No" and turned away, but not quick enough to miss the surprise flicker across her face.

And that was when he'd realized that he was more than merely half in love with Kaoru. But he didn't have time for love at that moment, he was due in OR-5, so he washed his hands and put on fresh scrubs and set about saving the life of the prone woman lying on the operating table.

And then later Kenshin knew Kaoru must have cracked and told Misao, one of her closest friends, because he ran into the woman – who worked as a social worker for the hospital – and there was worry in her eyes and a little bounce gone from her step, and her manner was colder, just towards him.

"Hi, Misao," he said, slipping in line for coffee behind her. He was in the hospital cafeteria again. Some days, life seemed to revolve around the hospital cafeteria.

"Himura," she said, half turning towards him in line, and he knew then. She'd called him 'Ken' for a year now, never 'Himura' since they'd first become acquainted.

"How's life lately?" she said, recovering a little of her energy. "I haven't seen you in a while. Ugh, this day started out the worst! Eleven in the morning and I've had four child abuse cases, two abusive husbands, one newly orphaned six year old, and a funeral to arrange. Why're Saturday mornings so horrible?"

She rambled on and Kenshin nodded in all the right places, but they weren't holding a conversation. Misao was babbling at him because that was what she did when she didn't want to admit that she was upset with someone she liked.

So they all knew that something was wrong between him and Kaoru. Kenshin would have given up, only he wanted to be able to move on. Tomoe had been a great part of his life, although they'd only been married for eleven months. They'd gone through everything in that relationship, all the ups and downs, and it had prepared him for the seven years of life he'd lived since then. He was twenty-nine and he wanted things to be perfect with Kaoru. Things wouldn't be perfect if he couldn't resolve this last issue with Tomoe – the distance between them during that last month, the doubts that had sprung up during that time. Seven years and he still needed closure.

Pathetic.

---

---

He was in the baking aisle when his cell phone rang. The caller ID said 'Tanuki'. One night Misao had gotten hold of his phone and changed the name to tease Kaoru. Kenshin hadn't changed it back because it made him smile, remembering Kaoru's angry blush that afternoon.

"Hello," he said, his eyes continued to scan the aisle for powdered sugar.

"Hi, Kenshin," came Kaoru's voice through the line and he exhaled the breath he'd been holding since he last heard her voice nine days ago.

"I've been preparing," she said in a rush. "If you still want it."

Kenshin remembered you had to breathe again after exhaling. "Thank you."

Silence.

Then, "What's the name of the person you want to talk to, and their relation to you?"

Kenshin found the powdered sugar, but he couldn't bring himself to reach down and pick up the bag.

"Just the first name," she said. He'd been silent for too long then. Kaoru's voice was strong, in control, not as she'd been when he'd first asked her to do this. It reassured him.

"Tomoe," he told her. Kaoru was the woman he was past halfway in love with. He'd never told her he'd been married. Strangely, it was only now that he wondered how she'd take it.

"She was my wife," he said. "She was murdered seven years ago."

Kaoru didn't miss a beat. "When's a good time for you then?" she asked. Her voice hadn't changed. "To talk to her?"

Kenshin forced his brain to function, to get over the fact that her voice hadn't changed. What had he expected – an angry accusation of betrayal?

He couldn't remember when he didn't work next – life was a constant stream of bodies under his scalpel. Four years of medical school, two years of residency, two years working as a surgeon in a hospital, and he couldn't remember his work schedule.

"Kenshin?" she asked again, patiently, as if she was used to dealing with people in shock.

"I have off Thursday," Kenshin remembered. He'd put in for an off call four day weekend months ago, and it was finally coming up this week.

"Be at my house Thursday at noon then," she said. "We can have lunch first."

"I'll bring lunch," he said quickly, mindful of her mediocre cooking skills.

"Whatever makes you comfortable," she said, and he knew Kaoru knew why he'd offered to bring lunch. "See you Thursday," she said and hung up.

Kenshin stared at the numbers on his cell phone screen. 00:43. Forty-three seconds they'd spoken. He was still in the baking aisle.

---

---

He didn't get to her house until three on Thursday. Wednesday night had been full of train wreck victims. He'd called her, sometime during his only break from the rush, and told her he'd be a couple hours late. She hadn't been surprised. She was used to his hectic schedule.

Kaoru opened the door, smiled, and asked him to come in. She was wearing a knee length jean skirt, the Kermit the Frog t-shirt he'd gotten her for her birthday, and green sneakers.

"Don't tell me you expected a flowing dress and turban combo," she said with a bemused smile, watching Kenshin as he watched her.

"I just haven't seen you in a while," he said truthfully. Her hair was up in its usual ponytail, held back with a green tie that stood out against her dark hair and matched Kermit and her shoes. From a medical point of view she looked well – slender, but not thin, alert and awake without makeup, no favoring of any body part, a light step.

"Doctors," she muttered, meaning him and Megumi most likely, and turned to lead him into the kitchen.

Kenshin allowed himself to look at her as a man, not as a doctor, and noticed, as he always did, her curves, the way she walked, the scent of jasmine trailing behind her, the soft sound of her sneakers against the carpet. He should've called her every day they hadn't spoken. He should've driven out to see her instead of taking on extra hours at work. He should've sent her flowers, candy, something. He shouldn't have just left her there in the hospital cafeteria.

"Hey, it's not easy being a doctor," he said willing to say anything to hear her voice again, to stare into her eyes and know he'd caused the emotion reflected there.

"It's not easy being anything," she replied, taking a seat at the circular kitchen table. "Sit down and let's do this."

Kenshin faltered. "Kaoru, you don't have to."

"Kenshin, I've spent two weeks preparing myself to do this for you," she told him. "Sit."

He sat down next to her.

"Put your hands on the table like mine and close your eyes," she instructed, sounding determined.

Kenshin did as she'd told him.

"Don't talk," said Kaoru. He wondered if her eyes were closed now as well.

"This part really has nothing to do with you," she said, her voice ethereally calm.

Minutes passed. Her perfume surrounded him, convoluted his senses. He heard a clock ticking to his right and somewhere high against the wall above their heads. He heard her slow, steady breathing next to him, as if she'd fallen asleep. His own breathing rushed in and out of his ears. The wooden seat was hard against his legs. He tasted the tea he'd had with lunch on his tongue, lemon with five packets of sugar. The light from the afternoon sun shone in through the kitchen windows, red against his closed lids. The room was pleasantly air conditioned. A gentle current of air from the overhead fan brushed his bangs across his forehead.

"Tomoe's here." Kaoru's voice sounded loud in the silence.

He opened his eyes and kept them focused on her as they adjusted to the light. Her eyes were closed. Her brow was furrowed. She frowned, but her voice was clear and free of worry. "She says hello." Kaoru sounded as if she was asleep.

Her body jerked in the chair and he watched wide-eyed, caught between inexperience and alarm. Kaoru opened her eyes and met his gaze.

She looked different.

"Kenshin," she asked in Tomoe's voice.

Kaoru's body, but she carried herself like Tomoe, the way she tilted her head, squared her shoulders, the serene expression on her face. Kaoru never quite managed serene.

"Tomoe?" asked Kenshin, hearing his voice tremble. He was twenty-two again, walking into his apartment late at night – 2am – and there was blood on the floor.

No. Twenty-nine. It was seven years later and he was twenty-nine. The scent of white plums drifted unbidden through the kitchen.

"I've wanted to talk to you," Tomoe said, "especially lately."

Kenshin was speechless. He hadn't actually expected anything to happen. In the back of his consciousness he noticed Kaoru's body wasn't breathing. But Tomoe was controlling her body, and the dead didn't breathe, did they?

"You're drowning yourself in work. It was just a burglary gone wrong, Kenshin. I left the letter with Akira."

He nodded. Tomoe's lawyer had mentioned a misplaced letter. Kaoru's face was turning red from lack of air.

"Please move on, Kenshin," Tomoe said, her voice faint, as if she strained to get the words out.

Kaoru's body contorted in the chair. She started breathing again. Fast; as if she was running a marathon. Sweat trickled from her hairline to her brow.

Her eyes snapped open. He was relieved to see that it was Kaoru again. She was furious. "Don't ever do that again!" she yelled, startling Kenshin from the daze Tomoe had caused. Fear darkened Kaoru's eyes.

"Kaoru," he said in alarm, standing, able to stand at last, and reaching for her.

She flinched away. "I tried hard not to let them know," she told him.

"Kaoru – "

"Get away from me!" she shrieked. Genuine fear and anger stained her voice. Kenshin drew back reflexively, as if she'd lunged at him. He'd never wanted to see fear like that directed at him.

"Not you, Kenshin," she said, staggering to her feet. Relief flooded his brain. The chair she'd been sitting in grated loudly against the tiled floor. Her eyes filled with tears as she watched an invisible drama play out around him. Ghosts, he now understood. She didn't see them as they'd been while alive, but she saw something. Kaoru gasped, then slowly shook her head.

Kenshin crossed the few steps that separated him from Kaoru and hugged her to him. She pushed away, shook against him.

Minutes passed.

Jasmine invaded his thoughts – the slowing heave of her body against his, small warm fingers curling against the back of his neck, silky black hair against his chin, soft breasts pressed against his chest, thin hips against his, thighs touching, breath warming his shoulders.

Minutes passed.

Kaoru's breathing normalized. "She's strong." She held him tighter.

"She was," he acknowledged, not wanting to think about anyone but Kaoru.

"She visited me before and I felt her connection to you," Kaoru said, surprising him. "I've been dreaming about her for seven years."

Kenshin wanted to watch her eyes while she told him this, but she clung to him tightly. He relished the absence of the fear.

"I only remembered the dreams after she visited me. And then the next day you asked me to find her."

Kaoru pulled away so he was staring down at her, and he had nothing to say.

"Tomoe drove the others away," she said. He could see she was angry.

"Others?"

"People desperate to talk to loved ones again," she explained. "I had a weak moment. I can't forgive her for possessing me, Kenshin. She'd best have told you something worth hearing." Kaoru practically growled the last sentence.

"Was there another way for her to talk to me?" he asked, confused.

"She's not supposed to talk to you in the first place!" Kaoru exploded. "I trusted her because of the dreams and let my guard down and she took advantage of that!"

"Did you plan to just tell me what she said to you then?" he asked, taken aback at Kaoru's anger, but feeling oddly defensive of Tomoe.

"Hell yes! You don't know what it feels like Kenshin!"

"Then tell me," he said before he could stop himself.

Kaoru punched him halfheartedly in the shoulder, and some of the anger in her eyes was replaced by pain. "Tomoe tried so hard to push me away, she almost banished my soul. I don't want you to know the pain of reentering a body you've been forcefully pushed from." She looked down for a moment and shook her head. Then she met his eyes. "The feeling's not for you to know."

Kenshin knew his skin was pale. He remembered that Kaoru had stopped breathing when Tomoe possessed her. "She did that to you?"

"She didn't know," said Kaoru evenly. And despite what she'd said, Kenshin could see forgiveness in her eyes.

"I've always known there was something haunting you," Kaoru told him.

And in his rush to love her wholly, he told Kaoru everything – how he'd met Tomoe, their eleven months of marriage, his doubts, her family, her murder, life after: distancing himself from other people, struggling to become a doctor, the death of Tomoe's father, the first day he'd met Kaoru. And the words died.

Kaoru started talking. In the beginning of her memory, she couldn't tell the difference between real people and the dead. Her mother had died and it hadn't been so bad because she could still see her. She'd grown, realized how different she was. Her father had died, had taken her mother and the other dead people with her, and she rarely saw them. They never saw her. She'd run her father's dojo in his place and lived with her ability.

"Who else knows?" Kenshin asked as he held her small hands in his, marveling at the contrast.

The rest of their friends knew. She'd spoken with the dead who hovered around them.

"And now we have to get that letter from Akira," she said, pulling her hands away from his. The loss of contact hurt. "Who is he?"

Kenshin forced himself to accept the fact that Kaoru had pulled away. She only wanted him to have the closure he'd sought for the past seven years. Still, he missed her touch as if she'd left the room.

"I think he's one of her friends from before we were married. I have Tomoe's address book at home still."

Kaoru stood. "Then let's go."

"What?" he asked in confusion.

"Let's go, Kenshin."

---

---

"Why didn't you tell me you've been married?" Kaoru asked from the passenger seat.

"It doesn't come up in conversation," Kenshin replied defensively. He took a risk and glanced at her. He saw only the back of her head. She was staring out the window. He wished he could draw a hand through her hair, release it from the ponytail, and force her to look at him. He turned his attention back to the highway in front of them.

"There was never going to be a good time to tell me," she said. "Got any children I don't know about?"

He frowned down at the steering wheel. "Of course not."

She sighed.

---

---

"Can I help you?" A black haired man a few inches taller than Kenshin had opened the door to the apartment on the west side of the city.

"Are you Akira Kyosato?" Kenshin asked.

"Yes," the man answered, his voice cautious. "And you are?"

"This is Kaoru Kamiya, and my name is Kenshin Himura."

Recognition dawned in Akira's eyes. "You're here for the letter then," he said, surprising Kenshin. "It's good you came now. My family and I are moving to the suburbs. I just stuck it in a cardboard box not ten minutes ago."

"That's lucky," Kaoru said.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Wait here and I'll grab it."

Akira shut the door in their faces. Kenshin heard a lock slide back into place.

"He doesn't like you very much," Kaoru commented, pulling at the collar of her shirt to force air down the front. It was hot in the hallway.

"No," Kenshin agreed. He'd been trying to remember meeting Akira. The man hadn't been included in the circle of friends he'd shared with Tomoe during the time they were married. She'd never mentioned him, yet he was important enough that she'd left the letter here.

Kaoru shifted her feet next to him. The sound was amplified in the bare hallway. The rap song from the apartment next door moved into its chorus. The hallway's still humid air made his nose itch. He tasted chocolate on his tongue from the milkshake he'd split with Kaoru on the drive into the city. It had been a poor attempt at begging forgiveness.

Kaoru leaned into his side and he adjusted to her weight. She slid a reassuring arm around his waist. She didn't look at him, instead staring straight ahead at the door. Kenshin smiled and slung an arm around her shoulders, linking them together against whatever words lay inside the letter.

Akira opened the door, a worn cream envelope in his left hand. Kenshin recognized it as a piece from Tomoe's favorite stationery.

"I almost threw it away a few times," Akira said, holding out the envelope.

Kenshin took it with his free hand. On his left, a letter from his dead wife. Held against his right side, Kaoru.

---

---

_Dear Kenshin,_

_I know you don't need stress from my family on top of school. I regret that I haven't stuck up for you as much as I should have. I'll leave this with Akira so you'll know, if things get any worse between us, that I love you more than life. I just want you to be happy. So be happy, Kenshin._

_Tomoe_

That was it.

It was over. The silences, the distance, the battle of wills during that last month – they hadn't been because she'd been involved in something that had gotten her killed. Kaoru read the letter to him because his hands were too shaky to open it without ripping the envelope. The single sheet of cream paper inside smelled like white plums. The scent mingled in his study with Kaoru's jasmine and finally diminished.

"I shouldn't have stayed late to study," he said after it was over and Kaoru set the letter back on the desk.

"Stop blaming yourself, Kenshin!" Kaoru said in exasperation. The soft sound of her voice rose from the gentle cadence she'd used while reading Tomoe's letter. "Tomoe was obviously marked for a violent death," she continued heatedly, confusing him. "Who are you to defy fate? You're just a man, but you sure do keep trying! And you can't even try nine to five like a regular person! You're lucky I accepted the fact that you're a surgeon."

Closure at last. Kaoru was forcing him to keep moving. Her blue eyes flashed. Her cheeks flushed with color. Her hands were on her hips, and she was really mad.

"Um," he said foolishly, stupefied by the way her nose wrinkled when she was angry. He was suddenly painfully conscious of Kaoru's body and unexplainably turned on. It wasn't right, not after she'd just read a letter from his dead wife. But it was there. Kaoru was probably going to hit him again.

"Kenshin!" she yelled, and actually stomped her green sneaker clad right foot.

"Huh?" he asked, jumping guiltily. He couldn't seem to manage real words, not while she was stomping closer. His eyes drifted down to her breasts underneath her shirt and darted back up. It was wise to maintain eye contact when Kaoru was angry.

"You're so dense!" she exclaimed, right in his face now. He was distracted by how smooth her skin looked. What kind of lotion did she use? His new closure, his new freedom, was making him reckless.

"Kaoru," he started, finally managing a word.

"What?" she snapped, and that was when he bent his head and kissed her. Her lips were smooth and she tasted like the cherry chapstick he'd watched her apply in the car. She froze as his tongue explored her open mouth, as his hands explored the soft skin under that Kermit t-shirt. Her skin smelled all over of jasmine. She melted as Kenshin pushed her back against the desk before he knew what had happened. Senses attuned with adrenaline, he heard the light crunch of the letter against Kaoru's body, and a crunch again as it fell to the floor. Her knee length skirt rode up around her thighs. She shook slightly against him and his whole world was the smell, the taste, the feel of her. With one hand he drew the tie from her hair and watched it tumble down her back. This was what he needed. This was what he craved.

She jerked away and punched him. It would have hurt if Kenshin hadn't had the presence of mind to tilt his head and lean left. As it was, she only grazed his cheek.

"What was that for?" he asked, watching her warily as she remained seated on his desk.

"You're not doing this because I'm the only woman around after the letter, are you?" she asked. There was real vulnerability in her voice and Kenshin realized she did feel something for him, and that he'd never told her how he felt about her.

He shook his head, keeping his eyes on hers. "I should've before." Her expression remained guarded. He hadn't said the right words. "Since the time Misao changed your name to 'Tanuki' in my cell phone," he started, knowing he was on the right track by the way she blushed again, the same way she had before. "Since then," he said, drawing closer cautiously until he could feel her hot breath against his skin again.

"Why'd it have to be something silly like that?" she murmured, wrapping an arm around his neck and those small perfect fingers were tangled in his hair. Kenshin sighed with pleasure, reveling in the contact. He only needed her body against his. She kissed him and her pushing back was better than when she'd simply let him. He didn't know where to put his hands first, there was so much skin to explore, and all of it supple and sensitive. All of it Kaoru.

Small noises of satisfaction escaped from her throat, adding to his own desire as he pulled his lips from her mouth to trail down her chin to her throat. Her hands left his hair and slid to his shirt, pulling the bottom from the waistband of his pants. She fumbled with his belt buckle, didn't manage to unhook it, and he pushed her hands aside and did it himself. He heard the sound of a zipper – hers, not his. He lifted her and she stepped smoothly out of her jean skirt with all the grace of a sprite. Her green panties matched her Kermit the Frog t-shirt. Kenshin laughed and brought his lips to hers again. He wanted to memorize the inside of her mouth. Kaoru's tongue was like silk against his. He sat her back on the desk, tripping over her skirt a little as she wrapped long legs around his waist, pulling him on top of her.

"On the desk?" she asked, lazy blue eyes watching him as he awkwardly slid an arm under her butt and lifted her. She laughed, body shaking against him as he carried her to the black leather couch. Kenshin joined in, feeling a little delirious with the unexpected joy of actually getting what he wanted.

"I don't normally match my underwear," she murmured into cloth as he helped her pull off her Kermit t-shirt and a green bra was revealed, "But I had a special feeling about today."

A tight curl of emotion swelled in his stomach. He had to laugh again.

---

---

**A/N - This is a tribute to the classic movie 'Ghost', which, believe it or not, played a decided part in the forming of my moral character. --Aryanne**


End file.
